11/15/08

Love makes a family

A high pressure dome off the coast of California is keeping us sunny and warm in San Francisco. It was raining slightly when I came here to get married two weeks ago.

Today we came to protest 52% of California trying to take that away.

The sound system was a little faint, but we liked what we heard. The speakers emphasized the need for more cooperation and outreach, to avoid blaming other people, and to stay focused and clear-eyed. The winning side's support has fallen several percentage points in the last 8 years. We can win this, and we will.

As this is normally a garden blog, I am pleased to include a few pictures of the victory garden that was planted in the Civic Center last spring. Until today, I had not seen it. The garden was recently planted with winter crops like coles, greens, and peas, garlic and onions.

It was nice to see people enjoying the garden,

But a wood chip mulching is clearly in order.

And why not chip the clippings from the sycamore trees that got pollarded this morning.

We got there early, and the arborists were just finishing up. This picture was taken before the others. Fortunately, we found a spot under some trees that hadn't been pruned, so we had shade.

There were some good signs, most of them hand-made. We talked about making one, but unfortunately we didn't get around to it.

(Okay, I didn't even notice that Churh is missing a c!)

My favorite sign had a famous quote paraphrasing from Mohandas Ghandi, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." So it goes.

By the way, I have no idea how the rally in Cleveland went, with the weather we had, but I know that one was planned. I checked it out on the website you linked (thank you) but it was being held while I was at work this afternoon.

I just don't get people who think gay marriage threatens the "institution of marriage." Like we're all going to divorce our spouses to marry somebody of the same gender. Or are they worried that gay people will stop marrying people of the opposite sex in an attempt to appear "normal"? (As if that happens anymore, and is even a good thing.) It's all about property rights and next of kin status, but because our country has problems from its Puritan heritage, the issue gets mucked up with so-called morality. I hope someday soon, such protests won't be necessary.

Like I've posted before, I've never met a gay couple who threatened my marriage, but I have met a few that have inspired it. I love that thru all of this, you take time to post pics of the garden! My kind of gardener. Here's to the day when we can all sit back an just think about flowers.

Chuck, you're probably not into British romantic comedies but I was happy to find Four Weddings and a Funeral on sale for $3, watching it while baking last week. It's been years since I saw that movie and I'd forgotten what the Hugh Grant character says about a gay couple in their group."Yes, it's odd, isn't it? All these years we've been single and proud of it and never noticed that two of us were, in effect, married all this time." I liked that Ghandi quote, too.

Hi there. I found my way here thanks to Annie from The Transplantable Rose. I did a post about our march here in Seattle and Annie left me a link to your blog. Had to come check out your pics of the SF march. Great pics of the Victory Garden too. --Curmudgeon